YouTube Premium users across the globe are facing significant price hikes as Google increases subscription costs in over a dozen countries. This follows earlier price jumps in various regions, including the United States last summer. The latest increases vary by region, with some countries experiencing hikes between 30% to 50%. For instance, in Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy, the Family plan will rise from €18 to €26 starting November, while the individual plan will increase by €2 to €14.
Countries affected by these changes include Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, UAE, Switzerland, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Colombia, Thailand, Singapore, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, and Denmark. Although most Reddit reports are from European users, the price hikes also impact the Middle East, Colombia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. YouTube had already raised its subscription prices in India by 15–20% in late August.
Absurd to pay so much just to remove ads only for smart TVs. There are easy ways to block ads on phones and computers.
I’ve been paying $25 CAD to support five family accounts and prevent my daughter from seeing ads during her monitored viewing. If that price goes up 30-50%, I’m fucking done. This was an expense I was willing to incur, as YouTube is literally the only media platform my family even uses anymore. Better price than cable and multiple streaming platforms, and (again) I’m paying that for five active accounts.
If anyone knows of a way for me to adblock through my Roku TV so that we can continue watching YouTube on it without a Premium account, I’m all ears. The TV is the only reason I’m not just using uBlock to begin with. I’m really not into the idea of hooking a laptop up via HDMI if I can avoid it. Just feels like a sloppy user experience for anyone else in the household wanting to watch YouTube on TV.
Pi-hole, although really you can accomplish network ad blocking with just about any spare computer.JK refer to the comment below mine
Pihole doesn’t block YouTube ads as it’s only a dns blocker, Google serves the ads from the same servers as the videos from what I understand. Adguard home works the same.
Invidious used to work, it’s a self hosted YouTube instance that blockw out ads and has things like sponsorblock. I have Playlet installed on my roku pointing at my instance but about a week or so ago it’s been giving only errors 😔.
The nice thing about hiking your prices by 50% is that unless a whole third of your users quit, you haven’t lost anything.
you haven’t lost anything
Apart from all future customers that will now choose another service
That’s the good thing about a monopoly. You don’t have to worry about customers choosing another service.
It’s so odd that a platform that relies so much on user content charges as much as or more than network streaming services. The market hold is leaking into it (and out).
I’ve been paying $5pm for family premium for years.
It couldn’t last forever, I guess.
Prob a reason to leave youtube
I can’t wait for google to crash and burn. Bring back GeoCities and Netscape navigator.
bring back web 1.0 because web 1.0 was superior.
Like Reddit dying after the API incident?
Just like Reddit, Google are going nowhere; sadly.
Google is having problems, they can’t make profits anymore. Its different because reddit was never profitable, but googles been profitable for years.
There’s a neocities project… As for Netscape… I think SeaMonkey is still active?
Use NewPipe if you’re on Android.
You’re welcome.
Firefox + uBlock Origin already does it too. No ads, and I can listen even when my phone is locked.
Any alternatives for iOS?
Using youtube with Brave Browser and AdGuard blocks youtube ads on iOS.
Started using YTLitePlus around a month ago, can recommend
FreeTube for desktop.
There is an Android version as well
Tubular if you want a newpipe fork that also includes Sponsor skips!
Or NewPipe SponsorBlock(Obsolete, see below) Or FreeTube for AndroidThat’s been discontinued, Tubular is the active fork.
Thanks for pointing that out! 🙂👍
Just did cause of ur comment actually, thank you so much!
It is morally correct to adblock youtube.
E: I can’t hear any of these counterpoints over the sweet ad-free youtube I’m getting for free.
Or just not watch.
i dont like being addicted to their platforms and limit my time using it.
however, the idea of being a luddite and isolating myself from the useful things in them just because their current owners are greedy capitalists sounds even worse.
Not watching has a much better moral argument.
Yup. But people would rather just carp on about Revanced and Insidious or whatever, as if everyone has the time to and the inclination to set that up.
Meanwhile, everyone else will piss and moan for a month, then pay up and keep watching.
What the hell are you talking about? I download an apk, I install it, I’m done. How many ads will you sit through before you’ve wasted the whole minute it would’ve taken to do?
You say that as if it’s obvious to everyone what an APK is.
It’s an installer for an app on android. Android has been around for half of my lifetime at this point. Not know that is like not knowing what an exe is on a PC.
First of all, you said time or inclination, the latter is caused by the ads, the former wasn’t really an issue as I’ve already said. Now you don’t know what APKs are? YouTube won’t stop with the ads. You either find an alternative, whether it’s Newpipe or just abandoning YouTube entirely, or you put up with them and stop bitching.
You can’t sit in the middle throwing your own shit at one side because “people will whine and then use it anyway” and then also at the other side because “it’s too hard to install a different app and don’t know what APKs are!”
an adblocker is much quicker and easier to set up
Doesn’t work on a Chromecast though.
If you have the time to watch YouTube enough that you’re considering premium you have enough time to set up these systems. The time it saves you makes back the setup time very quickly for someone watching even a moderate amount of YouTube.
If you have time to relax and watch your favourite creators, you have time to set up arcane systems to avoid seeing ads!
No. YouTube is relaxing time, not doing work time.
It takes less than 30 seconds to install uBlock Origin. It’s the first thing I do on a new install after replacing Edge with Firefox
I’m aware, I’ve done the same myself.
I can concede Insidious especially with the recent news but Revanced is so easy and quick to set up, calling it arcane is laughable. It’s done in under 5 minutes.
Wouldnt that just cause them to increase prices more? Since now someone else has to pay for the bandwith you use?
Thus what you are doing is using your technological know how to offload your costs onto less technical users who can’t adblock.
The morally correct thing to do is to stop watching youtube and/pr go to a paid platform that’s an alternative, like floatplane or nebula and support the creators there, isn’t it? But let’s be honest, we all know you just want adfree youtube videos for free.
You think YouTube is some kind of Mom pop shop down the block? They have more than enough money to burn. Least they can do is to serve adfree videos, better, I might add.
Thus what you are doing is using your technological know how to offload your costs onto less technical users who can’t adblock.
Which is the reason why we should help people get adblocks more, which is also recommended by the FBI.
I’m ok with all of that. It furthers my goal of hitting the platform back in response to their predatory marketing practices and de facto monopoly. Also, I do support creators outside of youtube. In short, I don’t feel bad about any of this.
Prepare for the downvotes!
Can’t wait to see this bubble burst.
The Peertube protocol developers should develop a central hub webpage space for newcomers, allow accounts there to follow all channels in every instance (and to only follow and block specific instances too), and then develop apps for smart tvs. It’s the only realistic FOSS alternative to Youtube i can think of, and i dont know why the first point is still non existent (having already subscribed to several channels in 3 instances using separate accounts).
Must be 50-60 people right? Who pays for premium??
YouTube is the only streaming platform I pay for. I don’t want to bother with 3rd party apps, and I use it every day. Plus I get YouTube music out of it, so I don’t need to pay for Spotify. Overall 7/10 it’s fine.
No judgements toward people who don’t want to pay though, I get it.
Pretty much same. I do get a “free” premium account with Google Fi. But since I’m paying for family already, that just sits there. But still, 5 bucks per family member per month for music and YouTube ad free, I can’t argue. It works for me.
I would reconsider things if price went up 50% though. Nothing is irreplaceable.
I bailed because the YTM algorithm is terrible compared to when it was Google music. It had got progressively worse and I really realised how bad it was when I subbed to Deezer for a trial. If they hadn’t trashed Google music by integrating it into YouTube I’d still be paying for premium if it came with both. Can’t imagine I’ll ever pay for it again now.
You may be remembering through rose tinted glasses here. YTM has it’s issue but so did GPM…neither I would describe as good products.
It’s unusable without ads, so if you watch a lot of YouTube it’s worth to pay.
I know, it is the reason why I don’t watch YouTube. I am just surprised that their tactic of gradually increasing the amount and duration of ads, worked!
I thought YouTube Premium was like WinRAR. Nobody actually pays for it.
I thought I was the only one. But turns out, there are dozens of us!
Really though. Just ran a Google search. Take it with a grain of salt. 100 million subs worldwide. So it’s not huge. But doesn’t feel small either.
Been paying for years now, got a 50% price hike. Canceled on the spot. I like the creators I follow, but recommendations have sucked for me for several months now anyway.
Any advice for streaming ad free on Chromecast or Samsung tv?
I’m in the same boat as you and never found anything for Samsung tizen os. Smarttube is android based only and anything streamed to a Chromecast still has ads.
Edit: okay I thought let’s search one’s more. And there is tizentube did not try it yet but seems promising
smarttube on tv
Revanced
Does that work for YouTube on smart TV?
The person I was replying to was mentioning a Chromecast so just get something to cast your cellphone to your TV and you’re all set
Oh I have revanced but it never works when I cast to my smart tv
Smart Tube Next is developed for TV only. Works like a charm.
https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube
Don’t use the .com website with the same name!
deleted by creator
Unfortunately not
just cancel all subscriptions. None of them are worth it
Bitwarden is worth it. (Yes, I know, I should self host it. I do, but I still see it as a good deal.) Also Hetzner is a good subscription. So yes, some are worth it
What do you need that isn’t in the free version?
Authenticator. Also, I would like to support the devs. Running a server and developing the software itself is far from free.
Fair enough, but does having your passwords and 2FA on the same service not defeat the purpose of 2FA?
Good point. 2FA is quite useless if you have a randomly-generated 256 characters long password for every service. I guess Bitwarden is worth it for the advanced security reports (it costs them money for this) and supporting the devs?
You don’t need to justify a purchase! If you like the product, paying for it is ge best way to ensure it stays around.
Plex
What?
Misread the comment
Agreed:
-Bitwarden
-Storage Share
-ControlD
-Real debrid
Backblaze as well. Can’t believe they let me store 20TB of backups for $10/mo.
Out of curiosity, what do you do with all that storage? Can’t imagine I’d ever need that much personally
So, only cheap services are worth it?
Are there some expensive services that are worth it? not just that they increase their price just because.
Don’t get me wrong, I want more examples (and I am a happy subscriber of Real-Debrid for years already).
As I have said previously, Hetzner is most definetly worth it and it can be expensive. I can’t think of any more examples tho 😅
Well, I use what I need. I’m not going to pay an expensive service just because. For instance, I wouldn’t pay for Proton. It’d be quite useless (and expensive) for my use case. I do have a paid Zoho email account, tho.
Kagi’s ultimate plan is $27.5 tax included. Easily the best subscribtion I continue to pay.
Nice example, thank you!
By there site its more like $120 a month?
Just do the cheap unlimited personal plan and hook up a shit load of external HDDs to your PC. I have a system where my NAS syncs to my PC which syncs to Backblaze so I can sorta hack my way into unlimited NAS backup for $10/mo.
3-2-1 backup where the primary source of data is the NAS, on site backup is desktop PC external HDDs, off site backup is Backblaze.
That’s an insanely good deal! I should move pict-rs to backblaze on my Lemmy server
Better look at B2(also from Backblaze) as well. Way cheaper than S3.
i meam the payment for a domain name is kinda worth it. as well as a functional vpn
Agreed. Mullvad is absolutely epic. A question: why do we have to pay for domain names? And why do some providers offer a domain at a lower price than others, while offering the same services? it doesn’t make sense to me, an explaination is welcome
a couple of reasons, some being that 1, ip addresses are limited on the internet, and making it free would instantly fill it up. another is that there is still some work involved,because once you register for a domain, internet service providers and DNS providers around the world need to also add your newly established domain to ip to their DNS so that people get redirected to your domain correctly. the domain endings also have a cost attached to them due to popularity and who is allowed to hand them out. e.g country related domains (e.g .kr for korea, .fr for france has their reasons to charge or without handing a domain out, but some countries may get lucky and happen to have a domain thats desirable (e.g Anguilla has .ai) and thus will charge more
I pay for my email (Proton) password manager (last pass), and VPN (nordvpn).
I’d say subs that maintain your privacy and security are well worth it - there is no such thing as a free lunch and instead the tech giants are dining out at the expense of users.
Googles ad monopoly needs to be torn apart. Because YouTube premium prices may actually represent what it really costs to maintain video sites like YouTube, but Google have managed to destroy all competition with the free model and now there is no one realistically able to compete on content or price.
Proton has a password manager and VPN. May be worth bundling over paying for all 3 separately
Sorry if you get this a lot, but have you tried Bitwarden? It’s been a while since I compared but last I checked I found it miles better than LastPass.
Or Proton Pass, they already use Proton for email
So, steal everything or something else? Content isn’t free. The ad model exists, but only works if people see the ads.
If everyone blocks all ads, and doesn’t pay a subscription, how’s that work for those providing the service?
I’m not defending YouTube here, just curious what your solution is to have a service and not pay for it.
I do pay for YT family Premium in the US. I watch mostly YT, and it is my music streaming service. I definitely liked it more when it was costing me $15/mo for that and was mad when that went to $23. I even tried switching to Spotify and using ad blocking on YT. I didn’t jive with Spotify, and while ad blockers work for YT, it’s a bit of a pain installing them on TV boxes and managing subscriptions across devices, asking with which videos you’ve seen etc.
Not op, but I think a solution would be having AI watch the videos and tracking what the people are saying, wearing, using etc and posting links to purchase those things in the description. They get a cut of sales and can also sell links for competing products if companies want more exposure. This could be effective and noninvasive. Give a cut to content creators and it may be even more effective.
How’s that work on tvs?
Youtube revenue in 2023 (before these price hikes) was 31.5 billion USD.
The revenue for the entirety of alphabet in 2023 was 307 billion USD.
Youtube alone generated 10% of the entire revenue of alphabet’s portfolio in 2023.
Yes, revenue is not profit, but I could not find profit figures for youtube.
Alphabet’s operating income for 2023 was 84.3 billion USD. Assuming a similar proportion of revenue to operating income (I know, hella extrapolating, but again no direct sources for youtube) that would put youtube’s operating income in the ballpark of 8 billion USD.
It’s not that they aren’t making money because people are “stealing” as you say from poor little indie company youtube. It’s just that they want more more more MORE MORE MONEY.
Because of course they do. It’s never enough.
Edit: because I forgot to link my source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204424000014/googexhibit991q42023.htm
YouTube is but one, and as I said while the story is about yt I was talking Mir in general. How do you pay for content/services in general?
Right now with via ads or a subscription.
